India's Freedom Reassessed
The Legacy of the Desais & Patels of Gujarat
By Chittaranjan D. Desai
June 2007
Distributed By Trans-Atlantic Publications
Book Guild
ISBN: 9781846240126
For Ages 14- 16
498 pages, Illustrated, 6 1/4 x 9 1/2"
$42.50 Hardcover
The history of India in the twentieth century would have been very different
without the part played in it by the Desai dynasty. From their heartland
of Nadiad in the Kaira district of Gujarat they provided a succession of
leaders for the non-violent resistance movement to British rule, including
the author’s own father, Dadubhai, and the brothers Vallabhbhai and
Vithalbhai Patel.
The centerpiece of the book is a stirring description
of the great set-pieces of passive resistance – the Bardoli Satyagraha
of 1930, which were to put the Indian National Congress and Mahatma Gandhi
on the map as the true representatives of the Indian people. These
and other significant events, and the remarkable contributions made to them
by the Desai family, have up to now been comparatively suppressed by historians – historians
who made us believe that the interaction between the political elite rather
than the popular mass agitations brought independence.
The author
also provides telling portraits of the main characters involved, both British
and Indian, including Pandit Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi (whom the author knew
personally), and the book contains correspondence of Gandhi and other leaders
never before published in English. This is a true insider’s view
of the long journey to India’s independence and tells the incredible
story with authority and originality.
Return to main page of Trans-Atlantic Publications